The Hemphill Stringtet's "Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill"

In the second half of the 20th century, no one wrote multi-horn polyphony better than Fort Worth-born multi-reedist Julius Hemphill (1938-1995). Just listen to the harmonized voices on, say, the title track from the World Saxophone Quartet's Revue, or "Otis' Groove" from the Julius Hemphill Sextet's Fat Man and the Hard Blues. Hemphill arrived fully formed with 1972's Dogon A.D. (for "adaptive dance"), originally released on his own Mbari label, later reissued by Arista Freedom. On that album, he debuted a biting tone on alto, wrote modern sounding lines with deep blues roots, and led a quartet highlighted by Abdul Wadud's cello. He'd been a founder of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, became a fixture on the mid-'70s Lower Manhattan loft scene, was the most interesting composer in the aforementioned World Saxophone Quartet, and formed his own all-saxophone sextet after leaving the WSQ. He remained musically active even after physical infirmities (diabetes, heart disease) rendered him unable to play. 

Hemphill was such a prolific composer that when one of his disciples, altoist Tim Berne, was recording a tribute album -- Diminutive Mysteries (Mostly Hemphill), released on JMT in 1993 and later reissued on Winter & Winter -- he wrote a new set of tunes for the occasion. Since then, Berne has performed Hemphill's music in his Fort Worth-centric repertory band Broken Shadows. More crucially, another Hemphill acolyte, Marty Ehrlich, has served as Hemphill's archivist, preparing his scores for publication. The genesis of the Hemphill Stringtet came through a chance meeting between Ehrlich and violinist Sam Bardfeld (Jazz Passengers, Bruce Springsteen), in which Ehrlich suggested Bardfeld form a group to perform Hemphill's WSQ compositions.

In turn, Bardfeld reached out to cellist and fellow Hemphill fan Tomeka Reid, who collaborated with Joel Wanek on an essential interview with Abdul Wadud for Point of Departure and had just received a commission to play Hemphill's Mingus Gold (a suite of three Charles Mingus compositions, arranged for string quartet by Hemphill) at a Chicago festival. (We were sorry to miss Reid when she visited Texas last year with Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet but regrettably didn't visit the Dallas-Fort Worth area due to the lack of suitable venue with grand piano. Sigh.) They recruited violinist Curtis Stewart and violist Stephanie Griffin, and the resultant album, Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill, drops April 4 on artist-run, Richmond, Virginia-based label Out of Your Head.

So, how do Hemphill's compositions work as chamber music? On the version of "Revue" that opens the album, the strings' sonority lets the listener luxuriate in Hemphill's gorgeous harmonies before the quartet takes off into the stratosphere for a collective improvisation that allows each member a brief solo spot. Ehrlich emphasizes that the scores can be played as written by non-improvising musicians, or extemporized on as Hemphill's groups did, and the Stringtet does here. 

Mingus Gold -- originally written for the Kronos Quartet, replete with double-stops to thicken the sound, and recorded by the Daedalus Quartet in a 2007 version that appears on the archival The Boye Multinational Crusade for Harmony box set -- opens with a straight reading of "Nostalgia in Times Square" (familiar to Fort Worthians who used to frequent the Sunday night jazz sessions at the old Black Dog Tavern), followed by a rendition of "Alice in Wonderland" that features Reid on an ad lib cadenza, finishing with a rousing "Better Get Hit in Your Soul" where you can imagine the synchronized handclaps along with Dannie Richmond's kick drum under Bardfelt and Stewart's improvised duo.

The somber tone poem "My First Winter" and the vamp-driven dance piece "Touchic" originally appeared on the WSQ's Live in Zurich but sound like they could have been purpose written for the Stringtet, as does the early WSQ study "Choo Choo" (first recorded after Hemphill's death on the Saxophone Sextet's disc Dr. King's Table). Any opportunity to hear Hemphill's music performed in the now is welcome; may all such efforts have the spirit and fire that the Stringtet brought to this release.